


Diminuendo

by Nekositting



Series: It Came and It Went: A Tumblr Prompt Repository [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - No First Wizarding World, Alternate Universe - No Voldemort, Asphyxiation, Delay In Voldemort Taking Over, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Professor Tom, Student Hermione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 12:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Nekositting
Summary: Hermione stretched her lips into something else, a smile, a panicked frown, she didn’t know. Riddle’s eyes darkened, swallowing all light that dared linger over the planes of his cheekbones.It didn’t take more than that simple expression to announce that he knew.He knew.





	Diminuendo

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prompt fill for nonny!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! Sorry it's late.
> 
> The prompt was: "Baby, you're my lady."
> 
> I don't know why ya'll trying to get me to do romance, but no thanks lol.

Hermione tried to forget.

She knew it was useless and trite, erasing one’s memory without the whispered words of _‘obliviate_ ’, yet still, she hoped. She tried anyway.

_‘Draco, hold out your arm.’_

The fumes emanating from the pewter cauldron, with its contents bubbling with heat, did not erase the knowledge she wished she hadn’t stumbled upon. The words were like vapors, swirling in the air. It tickled her brain. The memories were the stench of gubberworms and nettles clinging to her nostrils.

_‘Now, look me in the eye. Empty your mind; bite your tongue if need be. This will not be pleasant.’_

She ground the nettles into dust. Her hands didn’t tremble. She found that they hardly did these days despite the sound of that _voice_ lecturing them twice a week.

It’d been hard at first, to hold onto the foundations of one’s soul and not break.

_With his eyes burning into the nape of my neck._

Still, she held on. Biding her time in the hopes that this storm shall pass. _I only had to wait_ , she’d tell herself over and over again, stepping into the classroom with the source of all of her unrest at the center. _You only have to lay low_ , she’d chant, her hand still lifting with the same amount of gusto as she’d done before. If only to maintain the appearance that nothing was amiss.

She only had to _wait_ —

“Miss Granger.”

Hermione flinched, nearly dropping the pestle. She bit her tongue hard enough to bleed, noting precisely when the skin ripped in her mouth and flooded her tongue with the bitter tang of blood. It was disgusting.

Hermione swallowed it up, plastering a sweet smile on her face before turning. It was always best to listen, to _look_ , the predator in the eye than to flee. Better to give the predator the illusion of a hunt than to announce that the prey knew it was being hunted.

Professor Riddle stood a foot away, his dark eyes trained on hers. Hermione could scarcely breathe.

_He was much too close._

“Yes, sir?” Hermione inquired, restraining the tremors of fear that crawled up and down her spine when Riddle’s expression shifted, something curious and childlike alighting in those depths. It was neutral, of course. One might even call it polite.

Hermione didn’t trust it. She’d never trust it again.

Not after what she’d seen the previous week when she’d been patrolling the halls for errant students. It had been like every other night. She’d been an hour shy of her own curfew, ambling through the halls with her feet charmed into silence.

Except well, it hadn’t been like any other night.

She still heard Malfoy’s pained screams in her nightmares, still tasted his agony and terror in the back of her mouth when Professor Riddle strode into the classroom. Her ears were still ringing.

“Would you mind staying after class?”

Hermione’s breath stuttered. A sharp and visceral shot of horror spiked up her spine, rendering her immobile. It was by force of habit— _a miracle_ —that she managed to keep her smile in place.

“Of course, if this is too much trouble, we can discuss meeting at another time. I understand that you’ve many responsibilities as Head Girl.”

She opened her mouth, but no words would come. Her throat had dried up, the gleam of his eyes, trained on her, rendered her mute. There was something there. Just beneath the veneer of his lashes and the slant of his mouth that said more.

The words were delivered under the guise of a request.

His eyes said it was anything but.

“I-er, of course. I can stay after class today.”

Hermione wanted to bite off her own tongue, to swallow the words back up and spit out something rancid instead. She didn’t. Couldn’t. There was no Time Turner in existence that could roll it all back into nonexistence.

Riddle smiled at her, a curl falling away from his meticulous hairstyle to press against his forehead. Hermione took note of it, categorized it. She was drawn in, even when she didn’t want to be.

_Old habits die hard._

She had admired that curl. With her feather quill in hand, her eyes trained on his back as he displayed magic beyond even her comprehension, she had wondered what it’d be like to thread her fingers through his hair and undo it all.

_For him to lose his composure, to see just what lies beneath the black holes of his gaze._

How silly she had been. Naive and stupid. She never would have dreamed that Riddle was really a beast in the cowl of human flesh.

“Excellent. Then, please, do continue. Your potion’s work is _breathtaking._ ”

His words were a caress, the steel tip of a scalpel sliding up her spine. The promise to split the skin a sweet susurration she could not ignore. She tried not to shudder, fingers curling into themselves to dig her nails into the meat of her palms.

“Thank you, sir.”

Hermione stretched her lips into something else, a smile, a panicked frown, she didn’t know. Riddle’s eyes darkened, swallowing all light that dared linger over the planes of his cheekbones.

It didn’t take more than that simple expression to announce that he knew.

_He knew._

Hermione’s expression didn’t falter.

Riddle looked at her for a second longer, assessing. Hermione felt that second like the sands of time crushing her beneath them. Suffocating.

Then, his eyes left hers, stepping past her desk and toward another student’s. One, she couldn’t remember the name of, not when her mind was still reeling.

 _He knew_.

Hermione wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

Of course, she knew that she couldn’t maintain this for long. There was only so much she could do to behave as she had before the illusion shattered, and Riddle would discern the truth. She had always been a horrid liar and unwavering in her interest in Riddle. Even when her interest had been less than appropriate.

Too bloody _curious_. It was no surprise that he’d cut through the spaces of her words, settle between the nothing and the everything, to find the truth.

“Hermione?”

She didn’t move for some time, taking too long to respond to the familiar sound of her name leaving Harry’s lips.

She tilted her head to look at him, her legs rooted in the same position they’d been when Riddle had approached her. It sickened her just how devastating his effect on her was, even now.

_When I know._

“Yes? Sorry about that. Got a bit lost in thought.”

Harry’s eyes were gleaming, sparkling. An unfathomable green, breathtaking in their serenity. Except, there was a shadow in them now. Hermione could slide her hand through the shapes of his irises and pluck out their meaning with the tips of her fingers.

He was worried. For her.

_He should be._

“Are you okay? That was—” Harry sidled up closer, his hand falling onto her shoulder to give it a squeeze. It warmed her from the inside out. Her fingers loosened their death grip on her palms. She hadn’t let go, not once, even after Riddle had long since left. “— _odd_. It was like you forgot about us.”

Hermione tried not to laugh. Leave it to Harry to be astute when it was most inconvenient.

Her world had, in fact, narrowed to Riddle. Everyone else had fallen away, including Harry. They didn’t matter, not in the same way. Hermione wondered if that was simply how prey reacted to the knowledge of a predator in her midst.

“Really? I didn’t notice. You know better than I just how—” Hermione forced herself to turn back to her desk, potion churning in the cauldron. It was still the perfect shade of periwinkle. Just as she’d left it. “— _intense_ , the professor can be.” Harry’s hand fell from her shoulder seconds thereafter.

Even when Hermione hadn’t been privy to Riddle’s penchant for cruelty, he always had the ability to suck out all the air from the room. Even if, in the past, it had been from her sheer attraction to the man.

Harry gave a nervous laugh, his cheeks going pink. Hermione shook her head. She wasn’t the only one drawn into Riddle’s little spell, it seemed.

“True, you’ve got a point.” Harry leaned in until he was whispering into her ear. Hermione took hold of the pestle and returned to grinding the ingredients into dust. “But, this was different. It was heavy. I’d never felt something like that before.”

Hermione didn’t react, but inside, she was praying for him to drop it. When Harry became obsessed with something, whether it be Malfoy’s activities throughout the school or Professor Snape’s skulking figure in the hallways, he was all in. Nothing she nor Ron did could talk him out of it.

Speaking of—

Through the corner of her eyes, Hermione tried to find that familiar shade of red. It was absent. He wasn’t on Harry’s left nor at their desk in the corner furthest in the room. Hermione’s brow furrowed.

“Where’s Ron?”

When Harry didn’t respond immediately, Hermione stopped grinding her ingredients and turned to look.

Harry had a sheepish smile curling over his lips, his ears burning a bright pink. Hermione’s brows raised, unsure of what to make of _that_ kind of look.

 _That doesn’t bode well_.

“Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain, but—”

“But?” Hermione repeated when Harry did not finish, his cheeks burning all the brighter. Hermione tried not to roll her eyes. This was getting ridiculous.

“I don’t have all day, Harry. Remember, there’s no telling how long I’ll be meeting with Riddle.”

It was also their last lesson of the day. Considering the severity of what Riddle wished to discuss, she might not even make it out of the classroom with her mind intact.

Riddle was more than capable of obliviating it from her mind, if he so chose. It was what Hermione would have done if she’d been in his position and half as morally twisted.

“Right. Well, let’s say the twins got a little creative with one of their pranks and Ron has been holed away in his room waiting for the effects to die down.”

Hermione hoped the look she gave Harry was testament enough of how annoyed she was.

Honestly, even with the twins long since graduated, they were still causing trouble for their siblings back in school. She supposed that with the level of genius they possessed for their gags, it would make sense that they’d test out their little experiments on unknowing students for their shop. But just because she understood did not mean she had to like it.

“And, considering your outward refusal to tell me just what those effects are, Ron has sworn you to secrecy?”

Harry nodded, the corners of his lips pinching.

“Alright.”

Harry’s boggled at her as if she’d said the most unexpected thing in the world. He was right, of course. Had she been in a better state of mind, with her thoughts not turning to the authority figure conversing politely with a Hufflepuff student at the other side of the room, she might have insisted.

She and Riddle had a meeting in less than fifteen minutes, if her internal time clock was on the mark. She had more pressing concerns than Ron, as awful as that sounded. His brothers would never do anything to maim him permanently, but Riddle, however—

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Harry said, dragging her back to the present with a worried note in his gaze. Hermione grinned and winked, clutching onto humor she didn’t possess.

“Never better.”

* * *

 

Hermione didn’t move from her place in front of her desk, even when Harry had long since left.

He hadn’t been easy to convince, even when she’d insisted she was fine. But he’d left. One way or another. Through some unnamable look on her face, he had nodded and turned.

Hermione had never been more grateful for it. She wouldn’t be able to stand to have Riddle come and ask Harry to leave. The last thing she needed was for Riddle to set his sights on Harry, to think that she had told him something when she, in fact, had not.

Why this was so? She couldn’t begin to explain it. She should have told Harry. But then again, could she live with herself if something happened to her friend? To any one of her friends?

 _No_ , she had decided. _I could not_.

Hermione counted her breaths, skin prickling with unease when the door shut for the final time. The last one to leave had been the Hufflepuff girl, Hannah Abbott. She’d stayed after class to ask a question about her potion, eager to learn what it was that she’d done wrong—

But now, they were alone.

Hermione bit back the tremors this dizzying fact elicited.

“Miss Granger.”

She didn’t move, shifting her weight, categorizing how quickly she could move to draw her wand should she need to.

“Sir.”

_Eight seconds to slip my fingers into my pocket. Ten to seconds to pull out my wand. Fifteen seconds to swivel around and aim. Thirty seconds to shout the incantation and pray that I landed a hit._

Not fast enough to avoid being cursed herself. Hermione did the math. Not that she needed to, of course. With him at her back, she couldn’t turn fast enough to even _aim_ before he would land the first curse.

It didn’t help matters that Hermione _knew_ he could do wordless magic. She didn’t stand a chance.

With a resigned sigh, Hermione turned to face in the direction his voice had come. She wasn’t surprised to find him by the door, his lips curved into a polite smile that made her insides quiver. Or maybe, that was simply the gleam in his eyes, the sharpness that curved over the slant of his eyes that hadn’t been there before? She couldn’t be sure.

Hermione held still, her fingers curling into fists when, with a subtle lift of his hand, the hair-raising sensation of magic being cast filtered through the room. A silencing charm, no doubt.

Then, _music._

The sound filtered through the air, unannounced. It came from all sides. She couldn’t pinpoint precisely where it had come, but the moment Riddle tilted his head, a satisfied smile spreading over his lips, Hermione knew.

_He had done it._

But why? The silencing charms were more than enough to prevent their conversation from being overheard.

“Do have a seat.”

His hand gestured to somewhere behind her, no doubt his desk. Hermione only tilted her head, narrowing her gaze. He stepped away from the door, confident and smooth. He was practically gliding on the floor.

Hermione watched him, refusing to step away from her desk. Its corner dug into her back, solid and firm. Real. It grounded her, reminded her that she was there. That, Riddle, even though a cruel and unjust creature that tortured students in his free time, could not torture her here.

Riddle couldn’t kill her.

That knowledge did not comfort her in the least when Riddle’s expression twisted, his eyes flashing red beneath the sunlight streaming through the windows. His smile looked vicious.

“No, thank you, sir. I would prefer to stand.”

His eyes narrowed. Hermione’s heart raced, a steady _thrum thrum thrum_ pulsing in her ears.

_This was—_

“Miss Granger.”

Hermione hadn’t been ready.

One moment she was standing, feet firmly planted on the ground, and the next, she was _flying_.

Hermione screamed, her arms and legs twisting in the air. Her stomach jolted, jerking violently as if he’d stabbed into her belly and tugged on her insides. Bile burned like acid in the back of her mouth. Her hair was in her mouth, slapping against her face.

 _God, I’m going to be sick_ —

She landed in a seated position, her eyes falling shut at the same time she released a pained cry. It was a shock of electricity, that pain. It curled from her tailbone up to her neck, stealing what remained of her breaths from her lungs.

“Please, _I insist._ ”

His voice cut through the music, bled through the ringing in her ears. It was soft, but she heard every syllable. She never understood _how_ it was that he could get someone’s attention without ever needing to raise his voice.

“Bastard.”

The insult sat wrong in her mouth, but she didn’t regret it. Even when her eyes pulled open, head still spinning from being flung across the room, and found his eyes trained on hers.

“Now, now, there’s no need to be impolite.”

_What?_

Hermione was speechless. Her mouth opened, but the words did not come. He couldn’t be serious. He had bloody thrown her across the room with just a wave of his hand with no incantation.

It was utterly absurd.

“No need to be impolite? _No need to be impolite_?” Hermione all but shouted, her hands smoothing over the arms of the chair to shoot up and off of it.

She couldn’t.

When she tried to push, to yank herself away from the wood, her hands would not comply. It was as though Riddle had cast a sticking charm on the seat.

“You’re absolutely mistaken if you think you can get away with this—”

A sharp laugh interrupted her tirade. It was wrong. Too high and intense for someone so beautiful, for the sinuous roll of his body.

Hermione pushed back against the chair, unable to repress the instinct when Riddle’s eyes had gone cold, the black of his eyes melting into red—

_Like fresh blood on the pavement. Like maroon lipstick smears on a used napkin._

He was on her in seconds, his hands splaying over where her arms were pinned to the armrests. The touch burned her, like a brand. Still, she couldn’t move, pushing back as far as the seat allowed to escape the terror of his face centimeters from her.

“But I am.”

Hermione swallowed hard when his fingers tightened on her arms, blunt nails digging into her forearms. His expression didn’t change. But the smile—

The smile was like a blade, sharp and carved into a fine point.

“How do you think I have been doing as I please without detection? How would _I_ be working in the shadows, beneath the nose of your headmaster and my fellow colleagues, if I were not capable?”

Hermione didn’t say anything, unable to with his breath fanning along her cheeks, tickling her mouth. Her breaths, too, had stopped. She didn’t trust herself.

“No, _Hermione_ , if there is anyone mistaken, it is you.”

Hermione flinched at the sound of her name on his tongue. How long had she imagined him saying it? How long had she slid her hands from atop the covers and pushed them down into her pajama bottoms to quench the heat pulsing between her thighs?

This was so _wrong_. All of it.

“You can’t kill me,” Hermione said between wheezes, dark spots creeping along her vision from holding her breaths for so long. The taste of his own breath, of black tea and chocolate, suffocated her. She regretted taking that breath. She _shouldn’t_ have breathed at all.

Riddle tilted his head, his expression shifting into one of surprise before something wicked, discerning filtered through. Hermione ground her teeth into her abused cheek to stop from gasping.

“Correct. I cannot kill you.”

He didn’t look disappointed at this fact. In fact, he even looked _pleased_. Hermione didn’t understand.

“But I need not _kill_ you to silence you, do I, Hermione?” His eyes speared her, the magnetism in them drawing her in like the Earth’s pull on the moon. “What I do to you, that comes second to what I could do to others you care for.”

Hermione stilled, her fingers curling into the seat and digging into the wood.

“ _No_ —”

“Yes,” Riddle interrupted, voice certain. A violent impulse seized her upon realizing that he was right. In fact, she had already done just that by hiding the truth from Harry and Ron, from refusing to see the headmaster.

All she had were the notes she’d taken down and hidden, only to reveal themselves should she go missing or her memory falter. If Riddle neither killed her or took her memories, those notes and impressions she smeared onto the pages were meaningless.

“You will hold your tongue and turn a blind eye. If not for your own sake, but for _others_ —” Tom said, his grip on her arms gentling and smoothing into a delicate touch. It could easily be misconstrued as affection, that touch. This position, with him leaning over her, his face level with hers, might even be called romantic.

The fluttering in her stomach had nothing to do with attraction.

“—you will do _anything_ for those you value and cherish. Wouldn’t you, Hermione?”

Tears burned in the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She wouldn’t break. Even if he was right, even if he had her pinned like a butterfly on an observation table, she would not yield to the despair of her situation.

“ _Fuck you_.”

The words didn’t burn this time. For once, the crass words came easy for her.

There was no reaction. For his part, Riddle’s face remained unchanged. His eyes did not pinch at the corners as it normally would when he was upset, his mouth did not flinch, nor did his cheeks flush. He was frozen in a mask of nothing, his eyes red and deep and bottomless.

The music continued to play, undisturbed. It was a romantic piece now, nothing like the orchestral ensemble that had suffused the room from the very moment he’d enchanted the classroom.

 **‘** **_Baby, you’re my lady…’_ **

The lyrics did not fit the occasion. Much like how the monster living inside Tom Riddle’s body did not belong inside that person suit.

Then, Riddle smiled. His teeth were white and sharp beneath her gaze. Cherubic and beatific. It was like Hermione had been doused in cold water.

His eyes burned brighter.

“I should tear out your tongue for your impertinence,” Riddle murmured, voice so soft and delicate they almost melted into the music playing in the background.

“Should wrap my hands around that delicate throat and _squeeze_ until no words would dare escape that insolent little mouth.” His hands made their way to her neck as he said it, both palms wrapping around her neck.

She swallowed hard, mouth dry as his thumbs trailed over her trachea. He could break it, should he desire to. The intent was clear in his eyes, in the curve of his smile and the corners of his eyes.

Still, Hermione didn’t dare look away. She stared him down, looked him in the eye, challenging him to do it.

_Kill me._

The thoughts were loud in her ears, like the cries of buzzards picking at the remains of decayed flesh.

_Do it._

She dared him, lifting her chin, curving her neck so that he could strangle her with more ease.

Riddle squeezed, and Hermione’s breaths stopped. Her eyes did not waver nor did his. Dark spots crept over her vision, and not once did she think to look away. She watched him, bore the brunt of all her frustrations into that single looks.

She hoped he choked on it.

Then, as quickly as the pressure had come, his touch was gone. His hands fell to his sides, and he was on his feet, backing away from her with a strange gleam in his gaze that hadn’t been there before.

_They looked—_

Hermione’s throat burned, her insides going cold with dread. She didn’t know how to describe them.

_They looked hungry. They looked scared._

“Miss Granger.”

All he said was her name, but it was enough to end the spell that had her frozen in her seat.

He didn’t wait. With a spin of his heel, his robes billowing out like a cloak, he was crossing the room. It was almost like he was _running_ , with how quickly he moved. As if he, instead of _she_ , had seen something that terrified him and had decided that his best option was to flee.

The door smashed open and closed without a single glance back, and Hermione was suddenly alone.

The music came to its natural end.

Hermione could only smile.


End file.
